Derek Thompson

Some personal news. Today, I’m leaving The Atlantic after almost 17 years and moving my writing to Substack. It would be convenient, for the purposes of crafting an exciting departure announcement, to have a dramatic exit story: a fight, a grievance, a shouting match with an editor that ended with me hurling a bunch of leather-backed Thoreau volumes across the open-plan office. That is not the case here. I love The Atlantic, and I'll remain a contributing writer there. But after almost two decades at one publication, I wanted to write for myself. The things I've published that I'm most proud of—whether it was the original abundance agenda essay, or my piece on workism—emerged from a very personal expression of frustration, or confusion, or curiosity. I want to know what my thinking and writing is like if I lean into a more independent and personal writing life. That's brought me to Substack, which is already home to an astonishing share of my overall reading. I'm excited to join their community and excited to build my own. The name of the newsletter should be easy to remember: Derek Thompson. The newsletter will have three main pillars 1. Abundance 2. The frontier of science and technology—GLP1s, AI, biotech, energy breakthroughs—covered in a way that’s both curious and skeptical 3. The anti-social century & the social crises of anxiety and aloneness Thanks to The Atlantic for 16.8 incredible years and thanks to everybody who follows me across the river. - dt

One lesson of the last few days of commentary is that, in some key ways, politicians are just much smarter than posters. One eg: Left of center twitter is so factionalized that many commentators are better at seeing how independent voters can be pastiches of different ideologies than they are at seeing that Democratic politicians can also be pastiches. So when Talarico talks about inequality like Bernie, about housing like abundance, and about energy/gender/immigration like someone deliberately moderating previous statements to win the Dallas suburbs, each faction claims total victory by isolating one part of his message to say “see, he’s with MY team, not YOUR team, you LOSE.” In the end it’s maybe kind of harmless. Factions gonna faction, etc. But, the politicians clearly understand something many of the posters don’t: factions are like ingredients, and smart political campaigns combine ingredients to fit the local political consumer.

LIVE PLAIN ENGLISH SHOW! If you live in DC, I'd love to see you in 4 weeks at the Howard Theater. Tickets are going fast, buy here --> ticketweb.com/event/plain-en…

First full quarter of sales for Cybertruck was Q1 2024. Discontinued three days after the 2026 midterms. What an eerily timed and perfectly apt symbol of whatever tf that vibe shift was.

New pod: THE TRUMP DECADE ENDS 2024 discredited the Democratic establishment. 2026 has discredited MAGA. The next election will be a head-to-head between two currently headless parties that have an opportunity to define themselves for the next generation. Plus @Nate_Cohn on: - the myth of the death of the swing voter - the myth of the Trump racial realignment - the limits of money in politics - studying 1974 and 2006 to understand what might come after a midterm wipeout like this - what makes the Times-Siena poll so accurate - how The Needle became our election night god youtube.com/watch?v=fa3q7iHq…

The last 10 years are probably the most remarkable low-unemployment period in American history—punctuated, ofc, by the crazy, destabilizing pandemic. The three years before COVID were the then-third longest streak of under 4.5% unemployment and the five years and counting since we recovered from COVID are the longest, and counting. (via @jasonfurman) Even in periods of intense technological anguish, public anger, and whiplashing political change, at least some things are just quietly and consistently good.

Who are great people to talk to about how the post-midterm political landscape changes the AI buildout/trade? I’m open to obvious and non-obvious candidates …

There's a lot to focus on right now, but "The richest man to ever live just spent $200 million to support the Republican Senate candidate in Texas, and his man lost by double-digits in a statewide wipeout" is a completely insane sentence. Put another way, the most expensive US Senate race before 2020 was $200 million. *One guy* spent that amount in Texas, and it doesn't seem to have made any difference. It might have hurt in a kind of Streisand effect way, in that the spending level was seen as obscene to people sympathetic to the argument that billionaires shouldn't "buy" elections. The implications here seem pretty interesting! Especially re the limits of billionaire political power and/or the diminishing returns of money in politics.